Back in January I went shopping to Ditto Fabrics for the first time and bought four fabrics for my stash (who am I kidding – I didn’t really have a stash and I wanted one) which I write about here.   About one of the fabrics I wrote “as for the bird fabric – who knows? It just looked so sweet I couldn’t resist it. Any suggestions for one metre?”  Well, there were no suggestions at all until April’s challenge was announced for the Monthly Stitch Collective and I knew my inspiration had come to use my rather lovely watercolour garden birds.

As I only had one metre I went for my old faithful the Sorbetto but having had a look at some other Sorbettos on Pinterest I decided to follow others and do a variation.  I am not sure I would go so far as to say I braved “a hack”; I merely inverted the pleat.  Some stitchers had let the pleat flow directly from the neckline whereas others had sewn down a little way – I went for the second option.

It’s super sweet.  It’s funny but I hadn’t really thought of the Sorbetto as being structured but it is rather stiff/formal when you compare it to the inverted pleat version which falls in a very feminine way. I really like it! Surely Collette’s Sorbetto must be the most frequently downloaded free pattern?

There’s not much more to report. I generally add three inches to the bottom of a Sorbetto but I didn’t have enough fabric available. I’ve now used up three of the four fabrics I bought on that shopping day.  The one remaining is the doggie pattern.  I had ear-marked that for a shirt but over Easter we had a little family sewing day and I “supervised” the cutting out of a cute summer dress – which was immediately abandoned as interest was lost (not by me!). So it’s good to see that the next challenge for the collective is some children’s sewing so I will resurrect it at some point during May – probably the half term week.

Hope you are all having a good weekend,

Toodle pip,

Clarinda x